President Obama's vacation reading

Tue, 08/23/2011 - 11:08am by sernabad

The White House released a list of some of the titles that President Obama is reading while on vacation with his family on Martha's Vineyard. Immediately, the Twitterverse exploded with opinions and judgments and theories about "What it all means," to which library staffers silently say, all that's important with anyone's reading choice is that (s)he is reading. Period. End of story (OK, pun intended).

Seriously, we do not judge anyone for what you are reading. We're just tickled that you are reading (and, hopefully participating in the Summer Game).

OK. Here's a partial list of the contents of the President's book bag:

The Bayou Trilogy, by Daniel Woodrell (2011) -- Louisiana parish St. Bruno is the setting for Det. Rene Shade to try and clean up the mess that drugs, violence, sex, and corruption can make of a community. It's also a story of family -- Shade's brothers and their long estranged father are featured.

Isabel Wilkerson's highly acclaimed The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration (2010) beautifully covers the migration of almost six million African Americans from the south to the north that began in 1915 and only slowed down by 1970.

The March 2011 release of Ward Just's Rodin's Debutante reminds us of the special pleasure we get from reading books set in our hometown. This coming-of-age novel takes place in the Obamas' Hyde Park neighborhood. Lee Goodell looks back on his years spent at a Chicago boarding school and the brutal assault on a classmate that still haunts him as an adult.

To the End of the Land, by David Grossman (2010) describes an Israeli mother's anguish for the safety of her young soldier son. Her despair is so intense that she flees into the temporary relief of a hike with friends, leaving no means of contacting her.

Abraham Verghese takes his readers to India and Ethiopia in Cutting for Stone, his gripping novel of twin brothers, born to a nun who dies in childbirth and a British surgeon who flees when he sees the boys joined at the head. After their separation, the brothers, wildly divergent in personality, share a love for medicine and a young woman, with disastrous consequences.